Kosuke Ueki's Law of Righteousness (植木耕助・正義の法則, Ueki Kousuke, Seigi no Hōsoku) is the first episode of The Law of Ueki anime. It aired first on April 4, 2005 in Japan on TV Tokyo.

Kōsuke Ueki, a normal junior high student, possesses a not-so-spectacular supernatural power, which is turning trash into trees. One of his classmates, Ai Mori, at first believes that he is an alien but soon discovers the truth behind the power and why it was given to Ueki. Kobayashi, who granted Ueki the power, is a Celestial King candidate, who like the other among the group must choose junior high students to fight for them in the competition. Although Ueki has the power to his credit, he is not safe. This is proved when he faces off against an evil doctor, Kuroiwa.

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The episode starts off with Kōsuke Ueki, a junior high student, cleaning up a park and planting new trees. One of his classmates, Ai Mori, spies on him from behind a tree as she is suspicious that Ueki is an "alien". As Ueki sweeps the park, three gangsters show up and declare that they are going to take revenge for making the cops chase after them. Another gangster then jumps out from the bushes behind onto Ueki, but luckily Ueki blocks him using his broom; this breaks the broom. When the others attack him, Ueki takes the broken part of the broom and turns it into a tree and beats them up; this confirms Mori's suspicions. While Mori questions Ueki regarding this, Mr. Kobayashi, their homeroom teacher who had been sitting on a tree all along, tells Mori that Ueki has the ability to change trash into trees, a gift bestowed upon him by him. This statement leads Mori to conclude that Kobayashi is the leader of the alien pack, but he does not pay heed to it. Kobayashi lectures Ueki for misusing his power to hurt others and says that he will be punished.

Girls apparently want to punch Ueki on his face! This is due to him losing the talent to be liked by girls.

The next scene shows Kobayashi and Mori at the school staff room. It turns out Mori forced Kobayashi to reveal the secrets behind Ueki's power to her. He tells Mori that he is a candidate for the next Celestial King and that there are 100 such candidates including him, participating for the title. The candidates each choose a junior high student and give them a special power and get them to battle one another. The candidate whose student wins, becomes the next Celestial King. Meanwhile in the class, Ueki is snoozing and two of his classmates talk about the change in Ueki and how they are getting "nasty vibes" from him. For some reason, they want to punch him on his face!

Every student the candidate chooses has several skills or abilities. When the student uses the power (making trees from trash, in the case of Ueki) to hurt others, they loose one of their talents. The reason behind the girls' hatred towards Ueki is that he has lost his talent to be liked by girls. Kobayashi explains why he gave the power to turn trash into trees to Ueki in the first place. Six months preceding the incident, Kobayashi met Ueki on the streets and told him that he had lots of powers and that Ueki could choose one. Kobayashi demonstrates one of his so called 'powers' by destroying a tree in front of them. Upon seeing this, the careless at first Ueki asks whether Kobayashi has the power to restore the destroyed tree back into its original state and decides to take that power—turning trash into trees. Ueki has to be careful while choosing the trash though – smaller the size of the trash, lesser the chance of it becoming harmful to him. After hearing all this, an enraged Mori asks Kobayashi what would happen if Ueki lost all of his talents. Kobayashi replies that if that happens, Ueki would banish from Earth.

On their way back home that day, Mori tells Ueki about the things she learned from Kobayashi, but Ueki dismisses the consequences of losing the talents saying that it is "his" problem. As they are talking, Inumaru, another Celestial King candidate is up on a street lamp post, listening to their talk. Kobayashi and Inumaru meet, and the latter asks Kobayashi why he has not told Ueki about the grand prize of the game, "The Talent of Blank". The Talent of Blank grants its winner the power to choose any ability they want. However, it can be used for good as well as evil. If the power gets into the hands of evil, it would be misused and wishes of other people might get taken away. Kobayashi responds by saying that the person who gets to keep the talent of blank must be worthy of the title. Inumaru has a reason for coming to the place—to find out a person who is worthy of the prize. Inumaru asks Kobayashi if he had thought of Ueki, to which the latter replies no, as there is still a week left before the entry's deadline. Kobayashi then decides to put Ueki to a test to see how "righteous" he really is.

The consequences if the Talent of Blank falls into the wrong hands

The following scene shows three people, all dressed formally, chasing a student through the streets. Ueki is shown eating rice and sleeping simultaneously at a restaurant while Mori shouts at him for not listening to her. He wakes up and tells her that he might have been dreaming. The student opens the door of the restaurant but trips and falls on Ueki. The student is revealed to be the "most evil and dangerous bully" at Hinokuni Junior High, Sakura Suzuki. According to Mori, he is so strong that he defeated a gang within one night and also knocked out a bear with one punch. Ueki who is unaware of all this calls Suzuki an "idiot" and yells at him for spilling his rice. Another person is watching all this – Kobayashi, who is seated in a nearby table, eating rice. Suzuki picks Ueki up, most probably to beat him, but when the trio dressed in formals he throws Ueki back, but instead Ueki gets stuck between Suzuki and his bag. Suzuki flees from the restaurant through its backdoor. While leaving, Ueki asks Mori to pay his bill. Back in the street, as the three men follow Suzuki, a child is shown hiding behind a lamp-post and watching all this in fright.

Suzuki stops at a bridge thinking that the men have lost him. He then notices Ueki stuck behind him and attempts to take him out, but fails. Kobayashi realizes that it is the right thing to test Ueki's righteousness. Ueki asks Suzuki why the people are chasing him. Suzuki responds by saying that a doctor named Kuroiwa hired them to hunt him down because Suzuki had smeared dog feces over his car. Just then, the child, who had been watching the chase shows up and yells that what he told is a lie. The child announces that it was actually him who smeared dog feces over the doctor's car, because all the doctor cared for was money and he abused his mother ruthlessly when she was sick (it is revealed in the manga that Kuroiwa laughed and kicked her aside when the child asked if he could cure his mother, all because they had no money.[1]). While he was smearing the feces, Suzuki happened to pass by and decided to cover for the child. However, Suzuki shouts at the child, saying that he was not covering for him. He explains that everyone blamed him for the things they did and he was sick of it. Ueki then asks why he ran away from them when he could have just smacked them down. Suzuki answers that he did so because he promised to a person that he would never fight again.

Suzuki and the young child saved by Ueki

Just then, Kuroiwa shows up in his car, with his minions. The child tries explains that Suzuki is innocent but Kuroiwa does not listen and so the child jumps into the river, most probably due to fear of punishment. Seeing this, Suzuki also jumps into the river to save him. Kuroiwa watches all this and starts to laugh to himself. He then proceeds to makes fun of Ueki, deeming his facial expression "one of the stupidest he has ever seen". He probes if he is not jumping into the river as well, as the "trash belong together". He tries to push Ueki off the bridge, but Ueki punches him in the face before he could; the doctor falls to the ground. Underwater, Suzuki gets a hold of the child, but starts to lose consciousness. Ueki takes a plunge at the right time, and sees the two in danger. He uses an old bubblegum wrapper which was floating, makes a tree out of it and saves them both. Although the doctor is startled at first, he regains his cool and starts beating Ueki up with a whip. When Suzuki tries to interfere, Kuroiwa beats him up too. Ueki's eyes prance the road, looking for some trash but does not find any as the city's under a "No Trash Campaign". Kuroiwa beats Suzuki a few more times and chains him, Suzuki and the child in hopes of exterminating them.

In a flashback, Suzuki reminisces the promise he gave to his master, that he will not fight back again. The master advices Suzuki that if he does keep his promise, one day he would find the right person to fight for. Suzuki realizes that the person is with him and breaks the chain off. He sends one of Kuroiwa's minions flying, but falls down to his foot because of the damage caused by the whip. Ueki steps up on seeing this and swears that he will protect them. Mori, who was watching everything, comes running with a bag full of trash and tosses it at Ueki. A delighted Ueki thanks Mori and create trees to destroy Kuroiwa's cars. However Kuroiwa, is not ready to give up yet and activates some sort of a giant drill in his car and charges in at Ueki; Ueki destroys it too. The evil doctor Kuroiwa is defeated. Suzuki and the child watch this in awe and the former realizes that what he did was what his master meant. Kobayashi, who had been examining Ueki's each actions, decides that Ueki is "the one", and selects him as his "chosen student". However when the episode ends though, Ueki's talent decreases to nine.

"You have one of the stupidest expressions I've ever seen. Go ahead, why don't you jump in after them? You trash belong together!" – Kuroiwa to Ueki upon seeing Ueki.

"I don't believe it! (takes a hold of his whip) You've returned to get back at me, have you? You even give stupid a bad name! (whips Ueki)" – Kuroiwa to Ueki when he rescues Suzuki and the child from drowning.

"Oops, I'm sorry! I just remembered you're not able to hit me back. Are you?" – Kuroiwa to Suzuki when Suzuki holds back from fighting.

"For someone! I have to fight for someone else!!" – Suzuki to himself when they are attacked by Kuroiwa's minion.

The prologue of the anime is a fight between Kōsuke Ueki and Robert Haydn. It features the use of both Ueki and Haydn's sacred weapons. It ends with Ueki yearning for more power and declaring "It's my righteousness" to a astonished Haydn.

The episode follows the same plot setting as its manga counterpart, however there are a few extra scenes in the manga including the back-story of Ueki being picked on by the gangsters and letting children make him the target while playing et cetera. It is also shown that Ueki was pretty famous among the girls, with many asking him to be their boyfriend. That all ended though, after he lost his talent to be liked by girls.[2] A few other major differences noted below:

In the manga, it is mentioned that the group of four harass Ueki and demand that he turn in all his cash to them. However Ueki, without panicking, phones the police instead, which explains why they were chased by cops.[3]

In the anime, Mori is spying on Ueki from behind the trees and does not realize Kobayashi is up watching her on another tree. In the manga however, Kobayashi spots her spying and talks to her regarding Ueki.[3]

In the manga, one of the thugs notices Mori spying and gets a hold of her. He threatens to kill her if Ueki comes closer to him. Fortunately, Ueki saves her at the right time.[3]

The manga introduces another child character named Ken Gilbert. He jumps into the river or possibly fell down while playing, from a bridge, and Mori, who happened to pass by, sees this and decides to jump in, in order to save him. Unfortunately, Mori cannot swim either so Ueki saves them both. In the anime, however, an exactly similar scene is depicted with Sakura Suzuki, the unnamed child and Ueki.[4]

When Kuroiwa first appears in the manga, Ueki punches his face by telling there was a mosquito. Kuroiwa responds by saying there are a 100 on Ueki's face and begins to whip him. Eventually, Ueki's face begins to bleed.[1]

More scenes on Kuroiwa are also shown, like his hospital under-construction an unnamed friend. The hospital was destroyed by Ueki.[2]